The Hellenic Space Dawn (HSD) project is a multiple CubeSat mission to capture Earth Observation imagery that supports cartography, agriculture, forestry mapping and land use monitoring. The Hellenic Space Dawn is part of the wider Greek National Satellite Space Project, which is the first ambitious step of the country aiming to enhance Greece’s capabilities in satellite technologies and applications, and to empower the country to produce and exchange satellite data. The wider project includes Seven CubeSat missions that demonstrate a variety of services including connectivity and secure communications. The CubeSats are being developed by small and medium-sized companies and universities in Greece, following an open call and selection by ESA.
Within the framework of the in the framework of the Hellenic Space Dawn project (ESA ITT AO/1-11498/22/UK/ND), Geosystems Hellas (GSH) together with EMTECH Space PC, Integrated Systems Development SA, ΗΕRON Engineering, LEO Space Photonics, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, the Hellenic Naval Academy, and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, are creating the first Greek CubeSat twin constellation for Earth Observation (EO). The HSD project partners design, build, test, and will soon launch and operate the two HSD CubeSats (namely Selene and Helios). The twin 8U CubeSats will carry high resolution. Remote Sensing imaging instruments (4Mpx, RGB, ~17m GSD), and will offer multiple daily revisit as well as nighttime acquisitions. The HSD experiment also includes experimental on-board EO processing capabilities (vessel detection, image compression etc), taking advantage of the on-board high-performance data processor, as well as optical downlink and inter-satellite communication.